Ladbrokes Breaks Off U.S. Affiliates: APCW Perspectives Weekly for 26th October, 2012

[BingoT]

Ladbrokes Breaks Off U.S. Affiliates: APCW Perspectives Weekly for 26th October, 2012
This week, Ladbrokes decided to cut ties with their American based affiliates. While this is going on, William Hill is on the move again... this time with an eye toward Playtech!

 

[Dave]

Thanks for posting this, BingoT. The backlash against Ladbrokes continues to grow....

Here are a few more threads on the topic:

https://www.casinomeister.com/forum...-even-more-money-from-their-affiliates.53151/

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[vinylweatherman]

Is there any reason why US affiliates can't simply sell their Ladbrokes players to a non US affiliate? I have seen many posts in "strictly commercial" where affiliates want to sell part or all of their business, which would include currently active players.
The biggest affiliates could simply form a company and register it offshore, just as Ladbrokes have done to escape the inconveniences of UK regulatory and tax laws.

Ladbrokes would not even have to offer a lump sum, they would simply have to tell US affiliates to dispose of their player base in the affiliate market. Of course, their objective may NOT be so much cutting ties with the US, but helping themselves to a large chunk of active players brought to them by expert US affiliates who managed to switch to marketing to non-US markets rather than closing down.

If Ladbrokes can get away with this, ANYONE can.

The bigger US affiliates could consider suing for damages as a business vs business case. Bringing the case in the UK or elsewhere in the EU would probably be more effective than trying to bring it in the US where their business model may be a "grey area". This is not about whether gambling is legal in the US, but whether the business of promoting a legal product only to countries where it's consumption is legal violates US law. Surely, this also means that using a US based postal clearing house or marketing company to promote Ladbrokes bears the same risk to Ladbrokes, so of course they won't be doing it. If it emerges that they are, it could be pretty embarrassing.

It follows that as more and more countries regulate online gambling in their own way, such as France, then affiliates from those countries too could face the chop even though they are only promoting to countries like the UK, where the current liberal system is in place till at least 2014.

Whatever the risks, isn't a Grand Prive style backlash from affiliates an even bigger one? Grand Prive held out for about a year, and then had to try to find a way out because the backlash was hurting them so much. Grand Prive then realised it NEEDED affiliates after all, and faced an even bigger struggle getting at least some back on board.

I believe affiliates can PAB here just as players can, so should consider this option right away.